Chapter Text
If there was one thing Steve Harrington loved, it was a competitive sport. Basketball, baseball, hockey. He loved them all, had played most, and throughout his life had been to more professional sporting events than he could count. However, nothing he'd witnessed, not even the Superbowl he'd gone to with his dad, had come close to the exhilaration he got watching Robin now. She sped around the makeshift rink, roller-skates strapped to her feet, shoulder checking women into the boards, dodging elbows to the face, and sneering out insults as good as she got.
She looked good out there, in the green and gold of the Hot Shots, long legs eating up the rink. It wasn’t long ago that she’d have fallen over just as easily as she’d have knocked someone down, but three years in, she was at the top of the sport. For someone who tripped over air if she thought about her feet too much, on wheels she was grace itself. It was probably a little bit narcissistic of him to think that, seeing as he was her coach, but it was her hard work that had gotten her here. He was just along for the ride at this point.
And, he admitted as he watched a gorgeous brunette from the opposing team take out one of the Hot Shots at the knees, the view wasn't bad either. The brunette glanced into the seats as she skated away, saw him looking and shot him a wink. Most of the skaters were more likely to sneer in his, or any man's, direction, but a few didn't mind a fan of the male persuasion. Steve grinned at her as he settled into his seat.
He spent the next few minutes enjoying the current jam; Robin wasn't in this round, but he saw her getting ready to sub in. He had a beer in the cup holder of his seat and a bucket of cheap arena popcorn in his lap, slathered in artificial butter. He was going to have to add an extra couple miles to his run tomorrow to make up for it, but popcorn and beer were necessities at a roller derby. He tossed a handful of popcorn into his mouth just as Robin took to the rink, and tried not to get annoyed when some jackass sat down directly in his line of sight. There were other empty seats on either side, with the same view, but this guy had to choose the one directly in front of Steve. It wasn’t like this place had stadium seating, so the dude was right in Steve’s way.
Biting back an annoyed groan, Steve shifted over two seats himself; his row was almost empty, and he could still get a good view if he moved. It was better than making a scene and missing this jam entirely; two minutes went by quickly, and he hated missing any of Robin’s outings as blocker. His Birdie was vicious when on defense, her. He had bruises of his own to prove it, from training with her in between matches. The memory of the last time she'd knocked him on his ass made him grin, and lean forward to get a better view of the fun on the rink.
From this angle, every time Steve moved to watch the skaters go past, he caught sight of the jackass’ profile. There was something familiar about it, but the guy kept shifting away just enough that all Steve could make out was the curve of his cheek and the obscene amount of freckles. As the minutes ticked past, and one jam became the next, Steve found he was studying the other man more than watching the derby, and when it finally clicked who it was he felt a flood of conflicting emotions that it had taken so long.
They hadn’t spoken, really spoken, since '86, and the years since then had filled Tommy’s face out: his cheeks had lost their roundness and his chin had sharpened.
His shoulders got really broad.
The stray thought caught Steve off guard, but not as off guard as the first time he’d had a thought like that about Tommy. They’d been thirteen then, and Steve had been struck by the urge to put his arm around Tommy's shoulder. They'd been watching a movie—some stupid horror flick and Tommy had screamed when the killer jumped out with the chainsaw—and Steve had thought it might be nice to comfort his friend the same way he might a girl. Then he'd shoved that feeling so far down inside that he hadn’t thought about another guy like that again until almost seven years later.
What was Tommy doing here?
He shook off the memories, tried to focus on the present and the fact that if Tommy Hagan of all people was sitting here in Buffalo, New York, watching a semi-professional roller-derby match, that had to mean--
It took a minute, but there she was. Wearing the bright pink and black of the Bubblegum Beasties, was Carol Perkins, her red curls pulled into pigtails beneath the pink helmet. As soon as he saw her, as if she sensed him, their eyes met. Her pretty, pointed face curved into a sly grin, and she picked up speed. Steve almost closed his eyes but didn’t have time as Carol full-body tackled Robin, sending both of them into the rink boards.
As it happened, Tommy turned in his seat, the brown eyes Steve had, at one point, known as well as his own, sparkling with mischief.
“Hey, Harrington. How’s it hanging?”
Robin didn't remember the end of the match after she was slammed into the boards by someone in pink and black, with red curls sticking out from beneath her helmet. There was something familiar about her, and Robin shook off her first thought. There was no way Vickie would be here—last Robin knew she was in Seattle, settled down with a long-term boyfriend and a water dog of some kind. It took her a few seconds—longer than it should have—to shake off the tackle, and get back into the field. By the time she had, the Bubblegum Beasties had scored twice, and the whistle sounded to indicate the end of the match.
The Hot Shots groaned, Susan shoulder checking Robin on their way off the rink. "Get your head out of your ass next time, Bucks. We shoulda had this one." It wasn't an aggressive shoulder check, but it wasn't a friendly one either. Susan was not a graceful loser.
Susan wasn't graceful about a lot of things, Robin thought, slinging herself onto a bench to undo her skates. She should have listened to Steve; he'd said it was a bad idea to sleep with someone on the team. "That never ends well, Robbie. Trust me." But she'd thought to herself what did he know. He was a guy, and it wasn't like he'd ever slept with a teammate, and besides, she'd slept with plenty of women and remained friends with them after. Susan shouldn't have been an exception.
And yet—
She was pulled out of her thoughts by someone else coming to sit on her bench. Right next to her. Close enough that she could smell the orange blossom scent of their lotion. She glanced out of her peripheral vision and saw the black and pink of the Bubblegum Beasties, and a flash of red hair. There was that feeling of familiarity again, like Robin should be able to place the face with a name, but she was coming up empty without a full look at the other woman.
"You know, I'm not Medusa. You're not going to turn to stone if you look right at me, Buckley." The woman's voice dripped with sarcasm, amusement, and something else Robin couldn't place. And she knew her name. "Though I have been accused of hiding snakes in my hair before. In Tommy's defense, he was very high, and I might have planted the idea in his head."
Tommy. Red hair. Words sharper than any knife. The name clicked with a sudden violence, and Robin turned to look at Carol Perkins for the first time since high school. The last time they'd been in the same room together, it had been over Steve's hospital bed, after Starcourt. They hadn't talked, just made eye contact for an uncomfortably long time, before Carol nodded and slipped out the door.
It was the one secret Robin had never told Steve.
"Perkins? What the hell are you doing here?"
"Kicking your ass at roller derby, I thought that was obvious."
"Ha ha," Robin said, with a deadpan glare at Carol. "Seriously. This is weird, right? It's definitely weird. To run into you here. After all these years. I mean, I've never seen you at one of these before, and we've skated against the Bubblegums before—"
"Take a breath, Buckley. The league schedule is publicly available, along with the roster. Tommy and I needed a neutral place to arrange this little reunion, so let's just say me joining this team was the quickest way to make sure our paths crossed." Carol smirked. "And okay, maybe I didn't officially join the team, but what can I say. It looked fun, and there was an extra uniform lying around. How'd I do for my first match?"
Robin could only stare, Carol's explanation providing more questions than it did answers. "You don't hit like it was your first match." Robin winced; that hadn't been what she intended to say. The words had just slipped out, the way they always did around attractive women.
Carol smirked. "Well. Full-body tackling other women? That I'm basically a pro at." Her smirk left nothing to interpretation, and Robin felt her entire body flush. "I think maybe I'll keep it up, once this is all over."
"Once what's all over?" Robin asked, striving for a semblance of normalcy; she didn't want Carol to know what sort of effect she had on her. She also decided to ignore all the parts of the story that didn't make sense—which was most of it—and focus on the most pressing bit. "But what are you doing here, in Buffalo? Steve heard from his dad that you and Tommy were engaged and living in Boston. Which he heard through Tommy's dad. The dad grapevine, I guess."
Steve didn't have regular contact with his parents, because Richard and Diane rarely returned his calls. However, every so often one or the other of them would remember they had a son, start up semi-frequent phone calls that lasted just long enough for Steve to get his hopes up that things had changed, and then they'd forget him again. It infuriated her each time, to see the way he'd lock into himself after it happened, try to brush it off as just one of those things:
They're very busy people, Robs, and I'm a grown man. It's not reasonable to expect weekly chats with Mommy and Daddy. The words sounded like Richard and Diane, not Steve, but Robin had long learned where to pick her battles.
She was saved from getting lost in her petty dislike of Steve's parents by a look that crossed over Carol's face at the mention of both Steve and Tommy's dads, like she was having thoughts along the same line as Robin was.
"Actually, it's Chicago now."
Chicago? "Steve and I are in Chicago." They'd moved there after Robin finished undergrad, planned to get established over the summer, and then Robin would start the graduate linguistics program at the University of Chicago in the fall and try to talk Steve into a course or two at one of the many community colleges in the city. Robin had been collecting brochures ever since they moved there.
"Did you know that Harrington and Hagan Associates just opened a branch there too?"
Robin blinked, trying to follow Carol's train of thought. "No. Steve hasn't heard from his parents in a few months."
Carol snorted. "Wow, I'm so surprised, that's like, such a shocker," she said, Valley girl inflection given with deadpan delivery in a way that had Robin unable to hold back a laugh. "They always did like to show up just long enough to fuck him up, then disappear for months before doing it all over again." She cocked her head as she studied Robin, and Robin had to fight the urge to squirm. "But I don't have to tell you that, do I?" She sounded thoughtful, and like she didn't need an answer, but Robin felt compelled to give one anyway.
"No. They seem to have a sixth sense about when he's doing well, and call right about that time." She made a face, and wondered if she should be telling Carol any of this. Steve had always been pretty closed-mouthed about his friendship with Carol and Tommy, but what little she'd dragged out of him about both over the years had made it clear that there was unfinished business Steve wasn't ready to address. So she probably shouldn't be spilling his personal business to Carol now. For all that Carol acted like she knew Steve, they hadn't been friends for years, but the words just seemed to keep falling out of her mouth. "I changed our number once, when we were still in Indianapolis. Told Steve it was because some guy from the bar we worked at kept harassing me, but somehow they tracked it down. Steve didn't give it to them, and I know I didn't; we're always unlisted."
"Buckley, you've been Steve's other half since 1985." Carol started to unlace her skates, making quick work of swapping them out for sneakers. Robin couldn't help but think that the action, and the lack of eye contact, was purposeful. "That's long enough to know that Harrington money can buy just about anything. Unlisted phone numbers are child's play, all things considered."
Since Robin knew that was true; Hell, she could probably track down an unlisted number with enough motivation, and she knew for damn sure Nancy, Erica, or Dustin could do it, so it really wasn't much of a surprise that people with the Harrington's resources would be able to get their hands on one. Again Carol didn't seem to need a response, so she didn't bother to give one. Talking about Steve's parents never failed to make her incandescent with a rage that had nowhere to go, and Steve probably wouldn't like that she was airing his personal business with someone he hadn't spoken to since he was seventeen, so better to stop now before she said anything she’d regret later.
So, she changed the subject. "I should find Steve and you should wrangle Hagan." Robin was proud of the way she sounded so completely normal and not at all like having Carol Perkins all up close and personal, invading her space like they'd known each other all their lives wasn’t fucking weird. They were nearly strangers who had shared a hallway in high school, a hallway where Carol had once shoved Robin into the lockers, by the way! Robin hadn't forgotten about that, no matter how hot Carol looked in her tiny shorts and crop top. "They might be, you know. Working out their latent high school aggression, or something."
Carol laughed, bright and a little mean. "Oh, they're working something out I'd bet," she said, as if she knew a secret that Robin didn't.
It made Robin's skin bristle. She hated that there might be something about Steve she didn't know, a secret that she wasn't privy to that Carol was. She and Steve had lived in each other's brains for seven years, and the idea that he still had secrets from her—ridiculous, she told herself.
"What's that mean?"
"I've left them alone for—" Carol checked the clock above Robin's head. "—almost a half hour at this point. They've probably found a supply closet to work out that, what did you call it? Latent high school aggression?"
Robin gaped at her. Carol arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow.
"Oh my god. Please tell me that yours has had his big bi awakening by now! I can't do it again, Buckley. I've already gone through that with mine, tears and all. Steve was your responsibility when I left him to you after Starcourt."
There were few things that rarely happened to Robin Mark Buckley, and one of those things was being at a loss for words. Right now, faced with a wild-eyed and annoyed Carol Perkins, and the idea that her platonic soulmate could have been hiding romantic or sexual feelings for Tommy Hagan for the better part of a decade, had stolen every single word from her brain. In multiple languages!
"Honey, if Steve needs to have a bisexual crisis, it's going to have to be a quick one, because that is not why we tracked you two down," Carol continues, either not noticing that she'd rendered Robin speechless or choosing to ignore it. "We have much more important things to get done."
"He doesn't…it's not…" She couldn't seem to get out a full sentence when faced with Carol's pure arrogance. Or with being called honey by the hottest woman she'd been in the same room with in her life. It was a lot! "More important things?" Well, she could still repeat words it seemed. "What are you even talking about, Perkins? And what do you mean, you tracked us down?"
Carol didn't answer, just cocked her head to study Robin. The intensity of her gaze made Robin feel like some sort of prey animal. After a long moment, Carol grinned. It did nothing to lessen the feeling of being hunted.
"How do you feel about heists?"
Tommy's joke hung in the air between them for a solid six seconds, before Steve felt his lips twitch with amusement.
"Slightly to the left." It was an automatic call and response, a sign of an underdeveloped and juvenile sense of humor. That's what Carol had always said when they were twelve, and he could see from the smirk on Tommy's face that he was having the same memory. "Like always."
Steve turned towards Tommy, once he was sure Robin was fine—he was never able to look away from a match until she was back on her feet —and it was almost like he was viewing his old friend through a fun house infinity mirror, or maybe it was more like there was a stack of photographs in his mind, with dozens of images superimposed on each other.
There was the stocky six year old he'd first met, all freckles and messed up hair, who had sat next to Steve on the swings and declared that they were best friends now. There was seventeen year old Tommy, staring at him from across the cafeteria, eyes confused but face set in stone as Steve put his arm around Nancy. Lines drawn. Eight year old Tommy with missing front teeth, telling Steve he could share his Mom during Muffins with Mom since Steve's forgot to show up. Eighteen year old Tommy, at his door after Billy had beaten Steve's face in during the second go-round with the Upside Down, before Steve shouted at him to just go. Twelve year old Tommy staring at Steve with wide eyes during their first game of spin the bottle, and the scowl on his face when Steve's spin landed on Heather. Twenty year old Tommy, in a dark suit standing shoulder to shoulder with his brothers as dirt was shoveled into an open grave. Twenty year old Tommy in that same dark suit, rumpled now, walking out the door and out of Steve's life again. So many Tommys in between six and twenty, and they all flashed through Steve's mind in an instant, before they snapped into focus as this Tommy:
Twenty-five—a couple months older than Steve, so he'd have had his birthday by now— with wide shoulders that stretched the dark t-shirt he was wearing out nicely. He was still a couple inches shorter than Steve, so no late adolescent growth spurt he'd been hoping for that would have put him taller than his brothers. He was broader than Steve, so still active then, either at the gym with regular workouts or through physical labor, sports. Maybe both. His hair was longer, a darker red than Steve remembered—almost brown—and framed a face still filled with freckles. His eyes were the same honey brown, and the mischief that had been there to start had changed to something different. Regret, maybe? Or maybe Steve was just seeing his own jumbled feelings reflected back at him.
"It's good to see you." Tommy's voice was quiet but Steve didn't have any trouble hearing him over the crowd. "It's been awhile."
"Yeah. Uh. Five years." Steve could do the math down to the day, when he last saw Tommy. He knew Tommy could too. There was no forgetting the funeral of the best woman either of them had ever known, or what had happened after, in a haze of grief, anger, regret. A hundred other emotions Steve couldn't name right then.
Down on the rink, the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game. Steve didn't look away from Tommy, didn't head towards the locker rooms to wait for Robin like he normally did. Didn't flirt with the skaters who were interested. There wasn't room for anything except Tommy.
"What are you and Carol doing here?" It could be a coincidence, but Steve didn't think so. Not from the way Tommy had planted himself in Steve's path, not from the way Carol had targeted Robin on the rink. Nothing about this seemed like a coincidence.
Tommy's mouth tightened, his eyes losing some of the warmth and mischief. "What, not happy to see an old friend?" He looked away, back at the now empty rink. "It was Carol's idea."
When there was no follow-up to that, Steve sighed. "It's not that I'm not happy to see you…fuck. It's just…I know you. I know you both. There's a reason you're here, and I'm going to guess it's not to kiss and make-up after five years of nothing."
"We're not the ones who went no contact first, Steve." Tommy's voice was hard, and he turned back so they could glare at each other. "You didn't even talk to me at Ma’s funeral. Do you know how hard that was to explain to my brothers? And that's not even getting into what happened—" He cut himself off, ran a hand through his hair. Frustration was visible on his face, from the way his cheeks got red. Tommy had always hated that; Steve remembered how mad he used to get about it. Steve started to say something, but before he could Tommy continued. "Fuck. I don't want to get into it. Not here. That's not why we came, anyway."
Steve swallowed the apology, the flimsy justifications he'd used to try to soothe his guilt for the last five years, and nodded. "Why are you here then? Don't tell me it's just for Carol to work out some aggression on rollerskates." Though it had looked like Carol was in her element down there, Steve didn't think that was the main reason his two old friends had reappeared in his life.
"Do you remember Operation Hot Racks?"
Steve blinked, the question taking him by surprise.
"That stupid plan we made when we were thirteen to steal all our dads' money?"
He hadn't thought of that in years. They'd been having a sleepover in Tommy's treehouse, and outlined the entire plan in one night. Since they'd been thirteen, it had mostly been stolen from various heist films and some comic books, and had mostly included hot chicks in bikinis being so impressed with their plan that they joined them on a tropical island at the end of it. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Tommy smirked, and the mischief had returned to his eyes. "Wanna do it for real?"
"Heists?" Robin gaped at Carol. "Perkins, what the hell are you talking about?"
Carol laughed. "Okay, I'll give you the short version: when Steve and Tommy were thirteen they came up with a plan to steal all their dads' money. It sucked of course, had way too many babes in bikinis, not enough logistics on how to steal the money. Anyway, Tommy told me about it a few years ago, drunk and weepy over Steve as usual, and I got to thinking." She smirked at Robin. "Then I got to planning. Now, it's time to execute, but we're going to need a little help."
Robin wasn’t sure what to do with the idea of Tommy Hagan drunk and weeping over Steve, so focused on the rest of it. Not that it made any more sense. "You…want to rob Steve's dad?"
"Also Tommy's, but yes. I want to rob them blind. They're doing something super shady, Buckley, and I don't want to get into all the details now but I'm pretty sure it's all tied up in that Starcourt mess from years ago and whatever happened in Hawkins that the government wants us to think was a natural disaster or a gas leak or irradiated water, or whatever the fuck story they put out that's total bullshit."
Carol's eyes were dark, and Robin felt her stomach twist with nerves. What did Starcourt and the Lab have to do with Steve's dad? Carol had to be wrong, and anyway all that was over and done with years ago. Hopper and Joyce had promised it was done, and Nancy said they had the government by the balls about it. Robin trusted Nancy in that, because if there was any chance that the Upside Down was still active—
"Yeah, that struck a nerve, didn't it?" Carol said, breaking into Robin's thoughts. "Knew it would. I don't know how, but you and Steve are in this up to your necks. Not in the same way as Harrington and Hagan Associates are, but you know shit about it." She stood, hands on hips and glared down at Robin. "And that's why you're gonna help us. You and Steve, and anyone else in your merry band we might need, if it turns out we need them." She held out a hand. "Come on, Buckley. Let's get the boys, and find a quiet place to talk. There's a lot to go over and not a lot of time. Our flight back to Chicago is bright and early."
"Steve and I aren't leaving until Sunday." It was only Friday now, and they had been planning to spend a day checking out what Buffalo had to offer—probably not much, but Robin liked to find all the weird tourist traps whenever they went anywhere, and Steve didn't mind tagging along.
"Oh, did I not mention? I called the airline for you, changed your tickets. Almost as easy as finding an unlisted number." Carol winked, then waved her hand impatiently. "Let's go. We have a tight timeline once we get back to Chicago, and I need to get you two up to speed quickly."
Robin's head was whirling, but she took Carol's hand and let herself be pulled up. What did she mean, changing airline tickets was easy; that seemed to Robin like something that should at least be of moderate difficulty. What the hell were Carol and Tommy up to? She was almost positive this was going to be a very bad idea, but if Carol was looking into Starcourt and the earthquake, it was better to know exactly what she knew than to not know what was known—and now she was confusing herself, so she locked that train of thought down, and took her hand back from the other woman.
"I'm not agreeing to anything, Perkins," Robin said, squaring her shoulders and pulling herself to her full height. She was several inches taller than Carol, but somehow that didn't feel like an advantage. "But okay. Let's find Steve and Hagan, and then we can talk."
Carol smirked, as if reading Robin's thoughts, and gave a little two finger salute. "I told Tommy to meet us outside, so if Steve's been cooperative—and I give that fifty-fifty odds, depending how charming Tommy's feeling today—they should be waiting for us." She reached under the bench and pulled out a black and bright pink duffle bag, slung it over her shoulder, then headed for the locker room exit.
Robin, for lack of anything else to do, grabbed her own bag, and followed.